A humble return...

[Archanex Jotham]

Recruitment (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?22496-Recruitment-Thread...&p=180755#post180755)

(Feel free to make up the arena)

Standing in the halls of the citadel, Archanex closed his eyes to think back on the recent months of his life. After a previous citadel encounter, Archanex went back into hiding. A failed job later, and the overmage had lost his calling in life. He reverted to the study of ancient scrolls and tomes greedily searching for more secrets of power. After time and training had passed, Archanex had grown significantly more prepared to face the challenges of the citadel leagues. He found himself drawn to the promise of power that came with victory or defeat.

He had a new purpose in life, and that purpose was to gain ranking within the leagues of the citadel.

Crunching his knuckles as he balled his hands into a pair of fists, Archanex thought about his recent losses. He had learned much from the losses, and acquired a certain sense of humility. Closing his eyes, he recalled the last failed job where he was hired by Underwood's mage order to capture a mad prophet alive. However, the prophet was robbed right from under his nose after he thought they had secured him. That event alone was enough to cause the heroic magus to go into hiding.

For months, Archanex studied and trained. He turned sadness and despair to fine tuned focus. That focus would be taken out on the opponents that the monks of the order would bring for him. One by one, Archanex swore he would defeat them all. One by one.

As he stood there in the halls of the great monolith of mayhem, Archanex suddenly realized that he was no longer alone. The passage he was standing in was one of the east-wing corridors. He stood by gates that were double-digit numbers and lead into empty or taken chambers. The sounds of intense combat filling the air in the hallway. Archanex turned towards the monk he saw before him and forced a smile. Though the magus was not happy, he knew he needed to continue his training. He'd reached a point in his life where he was not making progress in his studies...

"What is troubling you, Overmage?" The monk asked. "You wear anxiety and despair like a mask."

Archanex paused for a moment, then responded.

"It has been a time since last I graced these walls. I am wondering if I can still contend..." Archanex said. "I wish to challenge the warriors of my current league rankings. None too powerful. I just wish to go head to head." Archanex paused. "It has been a long time. I am very rusty indeed."

"Worry not." The monk answered patiently. "Your skill will return to you as you fight. Jotham the White." The monk continued. "Do you wish for a particular arena?" He said carefully.

"None. Let my opponent decide the arena. I just...need to do battle once again. I want to feel alive." Archanex said, putting emphasis on those specific words. Archanex looked at the nearby battle-arenas. "Which one of these are empty?" Archanex asked.

"Right this way." The monk responded with a mischievous grin. "I will help show you the way."

[Maera]

It had been years since her last visit to this place. Many years ago, the Demon known as Maera had lost her life countless times in the Citadel and had taken a few herself. She smiled as she looked upon the grand building before her. A laugh escaped the woman’s lips as she sneered up at the building. “No matter how long it’s been, one thing remains the same… The Citadel never changes.” She said, her green eyes seeming to pierce into the very heart of the building before her. A stray cloud drifted overhead, casting a light shadow. Maera sneered a little wider and materialized a vine of shadow that wrapped around her arm, before it disappeared.

It was time. She walked up to the door and walked under the arch. She immediately caught the attention of some of the Citadel’s “normal” clientele, catching a few glances, some leers, and even a few interested looks. She smiled and continued walking forward. This was going to be her day, she could already feel it. A monk greeted her as she continued to walk. He fell in step with her with a practiced gait. “Lady Maera. My, my, it has been awhile…”

“Shove it, Eins. You’re MetalDrago’s pet monk, not mine, so get to the point already.” The demon snapped at the monk, snarling through her teeth. The monk straightened his robes, knowing that the demoness was not here for idle banter. “Well?” she asked, her patience beginning to wear thin.

The weathered old face of the monk didn’t so much budge. He kept that friendly smile on his face and gentle look in his eye despite the demoness’s blatant attempts to get a rise out of him. “You think I don’t know your tricks? Drago is twice the villain you are, and a thousand times more poli-“ the monk stopped short, Maera’s clawed foot digging into his boots.

“If you intend to keep your foot, you’ll do as I ask. I want a battle, to test my skills. I came back from years of training to test my skills, and I have no time for pleasantries, small talk, or insults, so…” she picked him up by the cusp of his shirt, her clawed fingers tearing holes in the cotton fabric, “…if you know what’s good for you, you will not keep me waiting” She let him go and pushed him toward the rooms where the battles were held.

“What kind of room were you hoping for, Maera?” the monk asked, still eager to please despite his patron’s less than friendly demeanor.

“As long as there are some shadows nearby, I don’t much care. I will not fight in a room full of nothing but light again.” She snarled. Her worst defeat to date had been in a white void of sorts. She did not like that one bit.

“Very well. Here we are… door AR64. This should suit both you and your opponent while giving neither of you an advantage.” The monk said. “Are you ready?”

Eins’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw Maera’s arm transform into a long, sharp blade, from her elbow on down. “I was born ready, old man…” she said as she walked in.

As she entered, she looked around. It seemed to be nothing more than a broken, abandoned forest with a few houses scattered around here and there. Then she remembered. She’d been there before. In the dark, rather creepy forest, she had met one of her most stalwart companions, a man known as Lorenor. The dark forest was just the same, blackened greens and brown, and rotting husks of trees. Even the houses were the same, collapsing roofs and broken doors, abandoned as sure as the moon shone overhead.

Maera even saw the abandoned manor in the center of the village, the source of a terrible dark wind that Maera had unleashed in the town to make a name for herself as a hero. The town caught on, eventually, however, and threw her out for releasing a Wind Elemental into their town. She laughed. Such memories were indeed funnier much later on.

She positioned herself, leaning against a tree, clawed fingers running down the length of her sword-arm. She smiled wickedly. She’d be able to destroy that which had wronged her so many years before, and crush someone’s spirit all at the same time.

[Archanex Jotham]

The world was complete. A certain sadness clung to the arena constructed in AR64. Archanex carefully looked down at the fungi that was growing at the root of a tree nearby to his position. He dared not touch them. The area itself radiated a certain elemental darkness. Archhanex blinked as he looked down at the mushrooms a few more second, then adjusted the collars of his overmage robes. Coldness flowed through the air that kept the overmage on edge. He didn't really like the cold. He was a creature of heat and fire.

Standing near to one of the many squat buildings in the abandoned village, he recalled the employer who had sent him to this back-water town. It was a hedge magi that worked for his mage circle. A group of druidic sorcerers that operated in Concordia Forest outside of Underwood. It was a remote section of Corone that this village resided in. Cold, dark, defeated. Several crows lurked on the trees overhead, cawing at the overmage as if they were expecting a meal out of him soon enough.

This made the magus shiver visibly. Turning his attention away from the mushroom samples he'd acquired, he fancied that he dared not attempt to touch the trees. Darkness was saturated in the trees themselves. He sensed a sort of foreboding evil coming from the very air itself. I am not wanted here. There was no room for heroes in such a dark and lonely place. Jotham knew he had to be on his toes when he faced whatever foe that the monks decided to throw at him.

Archanex stood up to his full, impressive height. He gathered his battle-staff and walked towards the nearby house. He figured that the best place to do battle would be out in the open. I shall force my opponent to come to me. He sat down on and old bench that was chained to the second floor section of the nearest house. He rocked on the bench to test it's strength, it held, and he proceeded to light a rolled up sample of the herb known as cannibus. It's sweet aroma was a dead give away to the overmage's position. But he knew there was more to him that met the eye. He wore his white dreadlocks at mid-waist length. He was ready. His staff leaned against him and the bench at a forty-five degree angle. He could readily draw the staff and beat the crap out of all who came his way...

...It was only the beginning of the nightmare to come.

[Maera]

Maera could smell the smoke through the trees. She couldn’t see it, yet, but she knew the smell of smoke as well as she could know anything. “My victim must have shown…” she said. Her eyes flashed as she pushed off from the tree with one arm. “Whoever it is wants me to seek them out… Hmm… If they want to set a trap for me, they have another thing coming.” The demoness thief walked toward the smell, until she was almost out in the open. It might have been in a warrior’s best interest to walk out right in front of the opponent and bum rush him, but not so to a thief. Maera took a ladder from behind one of the old houses and tested it against her weight. It seemed sturdy enough to hold her weight. She was trying to be careful with only one arm to use without activating her shapeshifting abilities. She climbed the ladder to get on top of the houses. They were close enough together to act as a sort of pseudo walkway from which she could see everything, and she could hide from her opponent.

She drew a veil of shadows around herself, using them to conceal herself, then started moving. Every time she started moving, her veil would disappear. Anyone with even slightly advanced eyesight would be able to see her moving among the rooftops, or someone with good hearing would be able to hear her, but she wasn’t worried. This would prove to be a pretty good test of her skills and those of her opponent. She crawled over the rooftops, feeling ahead of herself with her hand to make sure that the roof wasn’t going to fall through on her. She could still smell the smoke wafting up into the air.

Being a thief sure does have its advantages. Few who came to the Citadel for a battle would think to use guile and deception as their fighting styles. Maera almost laughed to herself, then stopped short. She was sure she was within earshot of her prey, and it wouldn’t do to let herself be revealed so quickly. She crawled down off the roof and dropped to the ground next to the porch of the large center building. Maera knelt and drew a veil of dark energy around herself. She could see the man, now, enjoying himself with a weird smelling cigarette.

She looked at her surroundings, and thought of a perfect first attack. She concentrated as hard as she could on the shadows beneath the bench upon which the man sat. They began to solidify and shot straight up, tearing through the wood of the bench. Maera stayed completely still, her veil having been dispelled by the casting of another spell. She waited to hear the painful yelp that would inevitably come of her opponent being stabbed in the rear end. She wanted this to last, so she wouldn’t even attempt to finish him in one blow. She was here for one reason and one reason alone, to enjoy herself. Whether her spell hit or not, she had made herself known, and thus she pulled her right arm before herself, the blade glinting in the half light.

[Archanex Jotham]

Smoking for what seemed like an eternity, Jotham inhaled the clouds into his lungs and pushed them out through his nostrils. Patiently, he waited for someone to arrive, never knowing the danger that awaited him. As the hours rolled by, Jotham began to grow slightly impatient. He wondered if the old, clever, monks had duped him into thinking that someone would show up. Finally, Jotham had smoked the cannibus cigarette completely. Only tiny embers remained of the blunt, and these were flicked to the ground nearby. It was only then that Archanex began to notice the subtle changes in his environment. But these observations came far too late for an adept in stealth was stalking him. Jotham had no idea what sort of an opponent would come his way.

That's exactly when the attack manifested. At first, Jotham sensed nothing, but then, all at once, the dark manifested 'neath The Overmage. Elemental manna gathered in the form of the dark, and turned into a spike that shot up from the shadows beneath the bench. The only thing that saved The Overmage was the bench itself. Creaking beneath the weight of the elemental spike, the wood became to crack upward. Shrapnel flew upwards, and then the darkness shot through the air. Jotham screamed as he felt the first stabbing puncture-wounds of the shrapnel-debris. The wood shot upward, imbued by the dark. Grabbing his staff quickly, Jotham tried to stand but it was just too late. He had no enhanced senses, thus, no way of predicting where the attack was going to come from.

So Jotham was hit...hard.

Jotham barely had time to stand. The bench came upward, sending wood shrapnel flying everywhere. His screaming was agonized, and he realized he'd just been suckered-punched. The feeling hurt, but not as much as the shadow energy that shot up underneath. The blast flew upward and for a moment, concealed Jotham in consuming dark. It burned for a few moments, and hurt tremendously, but ultimately, did not cause lethal wounds. The severe damage came from the grenade-like shrapnel that the bench he sat on had become. Shrapnel flew everywhere and ripped through his meager robes, the only armour he wore.

The robes were not much protection and were easily torn to shreds leaving him in tattered rags that barely covered him.

Jotham growled at that point. He had survived the whole ordeal, but he was definitely not happy. That was a coward's attack! Jotham thought to himself as he focused on the elemental manna. His control of The Overmage's power was still fledgling, but at the very least, he could defend himself against whatever was the challenge of the night. Deciding it best to mend his most serious wounds, Jotham took a quick assessment of his injuries. There was shrapnel damage all over his body. Several large chunks of wood were visible puncturing his thighs, calves and his chest. He had shrapnel damage all over. A particularly large chunk of wood punctured his right arm and stabbed completely through. That was the most serious of his injuries. Growling again, Jotham had a choice.

Should I fight like this and forfeit everything, or, should I heal at least the big injury with my spell? Archanex attempted to move his severely injured arm, it would not respond. Blood poured down the length of it and trickled off his gloved fingetips. He was down one limb. Grabbing his staff with his working arm, Jotham pulled the larger shrapnel out of his thighs. He left the smaller chunks in his body. There was little he could do short of healing himself at the moment, he had a coward to smite. Jotham turned his attention towards the dark where he figured his opponent would be in waiting. His eyes narrowed and began to glow with power.

"I know you're out there coward, show yourself!" Archanex yelled, feeling more pain as he spoke. He was bleeding from several large injuries. However, he was able to fight. He held his staff tightly, and began to channel the elemental manna...power of The Overmages.